


We Need Somebody to Burn

by Argyle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Death References, Injury, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:12:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur admits it: he's died a lot in dreams. It's a fact he tries not to think about, much less discuss. But when a routine scrimmage in Eames' mindscape increases the count by one, Eames wants Arthur to come clean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Need Somebody to Burn

By the time Arthur turned twenty-four, he had died on the job one hundred and sixty-seven times.

This wasn't an exaggeration: he simply liked to keep track of it in the same concrete way he conducted the rest of his business life. He dealt in certainties, and the deaths were a statistic.

Sure, it wasn't exactly a line for his CV. But should it ever come up, he wanted to be able to accurately wrangle the number down into something even more formidable, but still not far off, knowing well that in his line of work a person's death count could easily soar into the thousands.

They were mostly shots to the head sustained on the first, and sometimes the second, level of dream. Easy, right? When that happened and he was forewarned by even a few seconds, he just relaxed into it enough to make sure he wouldn't jolt too much on the wake-up.

Then there were the more unexpected fates. The car wrecks where he went through a windshield or was just thrown from the gaping hole that had once been the door. A few drownings, a few explosions.

Being buried alive was the worst of them. Smothered, sweltering and alone: Christ, but Arthur had never _known_ it could be like that. On waking, he'd pulled the cord from his arm and dashed to the bathroom, giving up his whole lunch and probably some of his breakfast too, and he was still sweating and hunched on the floor when Cobb came to pound on the door some twenty minutes later.

"It wasn't real, Arthur! But the fact that we're going to miss this mark _is_ ," Cobb said, his voice muffled but unmistakably pissed off. "Get your ass back out here if you want your share."

What a bastard.

That time, when it was all over, Arthur went out and bought himself a three piece suit.

It would be the first of many. His skin still crawled after he'd had a particularly gruesome exit, but he'd be damned sure to look his best for each one.

*

At thirty, Arthur was only up to two hundred and twelve deaths: he had gotten better at looking after himself. Though most of the time, it was Cobb or another member of the team who pulled the proverbial trigger on him, and that didn't make it any easier. In fact, Arthur kind of resented it.

The only saving grace, if it could be called that, was that when Eames was there he didn't seem to like it any more than Arthur did. There were more than a handful of times when Arthur broke from a dream, reeling with that final kick, only to find Eames right on his heels.

Now, Eames' mouth formed a taut line, and his knuckles were white with exertion on his armrests. But it was his eyes -- slightly hooded, creased at the corners, and boring right into Arthur -- that really gave him away.

Arthur huffed out a breath and looked away. "I'm fine."

It was just a practice scenario, a scrimmage through Eames' subconscious. Nothing serious.

And yet later that night, both of them exhausted and more than a little drunk, Eames pressed close to Arthur, covering as much of Arthur's naked skin with his own as he could, more than seemed possible.

Arthur could feel the stirrings of arousal as Eames laved over the place the bullet wound would have been. "C'mon, Eames."

Eames licked, then nipped at the tender flesh just below Arthur's left nipple. "How _dare_ you try to stop me from feeling better about this. You _know_ remorse doesn't come natural to my sort, so you'd best sit tight and think of England until I've finished."

"Don't be an ass."

"Shh, shh."

Arthur wrenched his hands in the sheets, doing his best not to squirm. The scene returned to him vividly: they'd been in Monaco (again), at a casino, as Eames indulged in his favorite James Bond fantasy and Arthur came sauntering after.

Only it hadn't worked like that.

Arthur had sensed that Eames was more agitated than normal, even before they went under. But Eames had just shrugged him off. He even went as far as to claim that a little shuteye would do him good.

The dealer thought otherwise. And there Arthur was just starting to get some decent hands, pocket aces and then what may well have turned into a full house -- if only he hadn't gotten shot, right in the chest, but low enough for him to stick around in time to realize his tux was a goner.

Eames, agitated? Try fucking ballistic.

Arthur shook himself. Eames' tongue was still on him, but lower.

"It's not as if it hurt. I mean, only for a second, and then--"

"What's it like?" said Eames.

"You know what it means to die in a dream," Arthur said. In fact, he'd never seen Eames die. But that didn't mean Eames never had. Of course it couldn't. Eames was far too headstrong, too cocksure, to have escaped every job unscathed, always.

"I don't know what it means to _you_."

"It doesn't mean anything."

"Now, now, Arthur." Eames' eyes flicked up as he planted a damp kiss above Arthur's navel.

Arthur sighed. "It doesn't. And that's the thing," he said, and he shifted a little to get a hand in Eames' hair, carding through it from crown to nape, just once. "It's happened a lot. Less often recently, but still a constant thing I've had to deal with for almost ten years. There'll always be a job that goes south, always a--" his breath hitched then: Eames took Arthur's cock in his mouth and began to move, too slowly "--a... um. A reason for it. A way out. Some new way to die."

"Mm," Eames hummed.

"And sometimes I wonder if when I see it for real, when I-- _Fuck_ , Eames, that's amazing. Don't stop, don't--"

But Eames pulled off, a wet, wry smile curling his mouth. "Yes?"

"What?"

"I'm listening."

Arthur blinked. "I think I might not be able to recognize it, when it happens."

For a moment, Eames' smile shifted into something a bit darker, and more knowing. "You will," he said. A beat, and the look was gone, replaced by the simple lust Arthur had long become accustomed to, but loved more than he could say.

Eames, like that, for him. Eames with his real scars, the neat lines on his back which teased round his spine, the pale, old mark below his left earlobe, the echo of six sutures at his hairline. The callouses on the worn knuckles on both of his hands.

Eames, who lived where Arthur only dreamed.

When Eames moved up Arthur's body again, arms bracketing Arthur's head, Arthur took both their cocks in his hand. That contact alone shot a thrill up Arthur's spine. But then he began to pump, and he dragged his thumb over the flushed tips, Eames rocking into it, and Arthur just struggling to breathe.

Arthur used his other hand to steady himself on Eames. He moved his grip up, tight on Eames' forearm -- savoring that coiled, sinewy strength.

It couldn't go on for long. It didn't.

In another minute, he came in a long, guttering spurt which hit them both. And then Eames came too, mostly just on Arthur.

Eames all but collapsed on top of him, though Arthur put a stop to that and pushed him to his side: Arthur was already a hot and sticky mess, and there was no way he needed to add "asphyxiated" to that list.

Instead, he used an already soiled sheet to wipe the worst of it off himself, then spooned in behind Eames, his breath falling in slowing puffs on the back of Eames' neck.

There was enough streetlight coming through the venetian blinds for Arthur to notice a faded, V-shaped scar between Eames' shoulder blades, lighter than the rest of his skin there and scarcely bigger than a dime.

He didn't ask Eames where it came from.

He never did.

But he pressed his lips to it, just for a moment, and waited for sleep to come.


End file.
